Bisecter

by Stephanie Fazio

I don’t know whether I’m more surprised the Halves can speak, or that one of them lied to protect me.

  “That was close.” Brice lets out a long breath as he pulls himself out into the open. “I could have sworn that one looked straight at us.”

  I stare at Brice, puzzled. “It did look at us. Didn’t you hear what it said?”

  Brice looks at me like I’ve gone crazy. “Halves don’t talk,” he says.

  “But didn’t you hear them?”

  Brice shakes his head like he can’t even believe we’re having this conversation. “I heard their grunts and snarls. No words.”

  “You didn’t understand them.”

  The realization that I can understand the Halve language stops me cold. I never got close enough to one—never even thought—they could be intelligent enough to speak. And I can understand them.

  But why couldn’t Brice make sense of what they were saying?

  Maybe I’m the only one who can understand them. The thought rings with a truth I can’t deny.

  I feel like I’m standing on an island, all alone, as a storm rages around me. I want Brice to tell me it’s alright, that it makes sense I can communicate with the Halves, but he’s still giving me that look that says I don’t believe you, and if I did, that would be even worse.

  “That Halve was protecting us,” I say, and then, realizing I haven’t told Brice about how I found him, “It’s the one that led me to you.”

  Brice scoffs. “The Halves aren’t that smart, and even if they were, they’d sooner kill us than help us escape. Trust me on this one.”

  I shake my head. If the Halves are searching for me, that means the Dusker knows I’m here. And he knows what I am. A shudder of realization courses through me.

  There is now no doubt the dead Halve I found gripping Brice’s drawing was sent to find me.

  “Hemera?” Brice’s eyebrows are knit together in concern.

  I want to tell Brice…to see what he might know and to share the burden of my growing unease. But if he thought I was in any more danger, he might want me to leave now all the more.

  “Nothing,” I say. No point in worrying him, I reason.

  The river brought us far to the east of the white buildings. It’s a long way back.

  “Careful!” Brice grabs my arm as I step past a yellow flower that drips a thick golden syrup and wafts a sweet scent. “Don’t get so close.”

  Brice plucks a leafy branch from the ground and brushes its top against one of the yellow flowers. Almost too fast to see, the flower launches out of the ground, shooting its syrup at the branch. For a moment, nothing happens. Then, the branch quivers in Brice’s hand. Its green leaves turn black. The branch shrivels into itself. There’s a small pop, and then the blackened branch disintegrates into a cloud of dust.

  “Notty nellies,” Brice says, looking with disgust at the yellow flowers. “They killed a couple of the prisoners before everyone learned to avoid them. The animals are just as bad, too. You can’t trust anything in this place.”

  “I—”

  “We could run, you know.” Brice’s eyes gleam with a ferocity I don’t recognize. He grips both of my hands in his. “We could find someplace to live on the other side of the mountain. I could keep you safe.”

  I look at Brice. There was a time when I would have accepted his offer without a second thought. I allow myself a moment to imagine what it would be like. Just me and Brice, living alone in a cave behind a waterfall, beholden to no one except for each other.

  But that was before I knew what I know now.

  “The Duskers lied to us.” I search Brice’s face. “The Banished Lands weren’t for dangerous criminals like they said. The Duskers just wanted to keep control over the Dwellers.”

  I draw my right hand from underneath my silk cloak to reveal the Solguard marking.

  “The resistance still exists, and there are people in the Banished Lands who want to go back to the way things were before the Duskers. They want people to be free.”

  Brice stares at the curling rays of the sun design on my hands.

  “I met my aunt, who is the leader of the Solguard,” I hurry on.

  “The rebels,” I clarify in response to Brice’s puzzled look. “My aunt built a fortress to keep the Solguards safe, but now the Duskers know where it is.”

  Brice’s silence makes me babble. “They’re my friends, and they’re going to need help. Once we free the prisoners here, we’ll have an army to attack the Duskers.”

  “We?” Brice asks.

  “My friends,” I falter. Brice’s face is awash with doubt. “I want to help. Not just because of what happened to my parents, but because I believe in them, in what they’re trying to do.”

  “Hemera, these—Solguards—” he pauses, choosing his words. “How do you know you can trust them?”

  I think about Dayne, helping me to fight the Halves even after learning what I was…Wokee seeing my strength for the first time and being impressed rather than afraid…Wade and Sal fighting to keep me in the company even after what happened to Gwendil….

  “I’m finally part of something bigger,” I say. “And they accept me. Not like the Dwellers. Some of them even admire what I can do.”

  “Maybe if you had told me about everything sooner—” he breaks off, shaking his head. “Maybe things would have turned out differently.”

  A wave of hurt crashes over me.

  “I didn’t know about all of it, at least not the part where I could go out in the sun without my cloak and heal people from Halve blood poisoning. I only figured it out after I left the Subterrane to find you.”

  Brice’s face turns Dusker pale. He swallows.

  “Okay, then,” he says. “If that’s what you want.”

  I want to throw my arms around him, but instead, I give his hand a squeeze. “Thank you.”

  Before he can reply, a dark shadow passes overhead. We both look up.

  “Burn vulture!” Brice grabs me and pulls me to the ground as the shadow looms closer.

  The shadow’s one flopped ear comes into focus just before it reaches us. “It’s not a Burn vulture; it’s Vlaz.” I disentangle myself from Brice and jump to my feet.

  The cub’s small wings pump as he flies straight into my arms.

  Laughing in relief that he wasn’t hurt by the Halves, I try to turn my head away as Vlaz bathes my face with slobbery hyenair kisses. He wriggles free from my arms to race around me in a circle, whimpering.

  “What in the sun?” Brice is staring at Vlaz. His hand rests on his belt in the place where his knives used to hang.

  “You’ve almost grown enough to fit into your ears.” I ruffle the fur on Vlaz’s head. He blinks up at me, his purple tongue lolling out of his mouth.

  “Of all things, to befriend a hyenair. Honestly!” Brice rakes a hand through his hair in exasperation.

  Vlaz cocks his head at Brice. It’s then that I see the blue silk collar wound around the cub’s neck.

  When I look closer, I see the blazing sun stitched on the collar in black thread.

  “Did Wokee send you to me? Is he alright?” Vlaz flutters his wings and rises off the ground to lick my cheek.

  Tears prick at the corners of my eyes. The Duskers wouldn’t have attacked the fortress yet, would they? If anything has happened….

  It’s an effort to get my panic under control.

  “Care to explain?” Brice raises an eyebrow.

  I recount the story of how I met Dayne and Wokee, and how we killed Vlaz’s mother.

  “The Halves are terrified of him,” I smile, remembering the way they fled from him.

  Brice still looks doubtful. He stares at me for several moments without saying anything.

  “What?” I demand.

  “You’re different, you know that?” He turns away from Vlaz to look at me.

  “Maybe I am,” I admit. “I’m glad I don’t have to wear my stupid cloak or try to hide my eyes every time someone looks my way. I don’t w
ant to pretend I’m less than I am anymore.”

  “I understand.” Brice turns away, but not before I see the look on his face.

  Is it confusion? Disappointment? I don’t know, and I’m not sure I want to.

  I keep walking so I don’t have to see his expression. In the distance, the pale flash of a Halve disappears behind a thick-trunked purple tree.

  Brice, who has bent down to splash river water onto his face, hasn’t noticed.

  I take out my sling and place a stone in the leather pouch. “I’ll be right back.”

  I step around the clusters of notty nellies as silently as I can manage. As I near the tree, I begin to wind my sling. I walk almost all the way around the trunk before I see it.

  The Halve is bent over the carcass of a dead animal. Its mouth is stained blue from the animal’s blood. Insects the size of my fist circle over its head, but the Halve doesn’t seem to notice. The air is heavy with the smell of rank meat.

  The Halve pauses when it sees me, the dripping blue haunch raised partway to its open mouth. It’s the one that brought me to Brice and saved me on the bridge.

  It drops the meat. Two of the insects swoop in, grasp either end of the bloodied haunch, and fly off. The Halve wipes the oily blue blood from its mouth with the back of its hand. I recoil as the Halve stands to face me.

  “Can you understand me?” I ask.

  The Halve looks at me. It nods its head.

  I lick my lips, which are dry and cracked from the heat.

  “I’m Hemera.” I point to myself. “You?”

  The Halve makes a noise that sounds like something between a sneeze and a cough. It sounds like “Ekil.”

  “I’ll call you Ekil, then?”

  The Halve nods.

  “Why are you different from the others?” I ask.

  What I really mean is why are you helping me instead of trying to kill me?

  “I wasn’t always a slave,” he says.

  “Oh.” I don’t know what else to say to that.

  “And my blood is changed.”

  His blood is…changed?

  I decide not to ask how blood can be changed, or even why. Instead, I slip off my pack and reach my hand into its soggy contents to pull out Brice’s drawing. It is stained in places from the water, but the image is still recognizable. I hold it out to Ekil, who looks from me to the drawing.

  “I found this with another Halve far away from here. Is the Dusker—er, Master—looking for me?”

  Ekil opens his mouth, but then turns his head. His eyes widen.

  “Brice, no!”

  A long, gnarled branch crashes down over Ekil’s head.

  CHAPTER 39

  You sick…disgusting...bastard….” with each word, Brice brings the branch back down on the Halve.

  “Stop, it!” I grip Brice’s forearm to keep the branch from falling again. Brice struggles against me for a moment, and then releases the branch.

  “Get out of the way.” Brice’s voice is colder than I’ve ever heard it.

  “No. You’ll kill him.”

  “Him? And yeah, that’s the point!” He’s shaking with rage. “My parents…your mother—” Emotion floods his eyes. He raises the branch again.

  “Brice, you don’t understand,” I begin.

  “No, you don’t understand!”

  Vlaz bounds toward us. He growls a warning at Brice before sitting, legs splayed, at my feet. Ekil begins to tremble at the sight of the cub. His black eyes dart from the branch in Brice’s hand to Vlaz.

  “I thought you understood,” Brice says. The look of betrayal in his eyes as he meets my gaze is like a knife between my ribs. “I thought you felt the same.”

  “I did, I mean I do,” I grasp for words to explain the jumble of thoughts in my head. “But this Halve isn’t the one responsible for all of those things. This one showed me where you were. He protected us.” I think back to the weaponless Halves our company slaughtered after leaving Solis, and the terrified look in their eyes. “I don’t think they are the ones we’re after.”

  Brice’s face is red and he’s breathing fast.

  “I think someone else—the Master you told me about—is forcing them to attack us,” I continue.

  “One man couldn’t control all the Halves in existence,” Brice growls. “Do you have even a shred of proof?” The look in his eyes is one I’ve never seen before.

  I remember seeing the Halves in the strange white building, with their orderly piles of weapons, and knowing the work they did was not for themselves. I shake my head. “Just a feeling.”

  Brice scoffs. “I’ve been a prisoner here.” He spits on the ground at Ekil’s feet. “I think I know more about these monsters than you.”

  I put a hand on his arm. “I want revenge for everything that has happened as much as you do—”

  “It doesn’t seem like it,” Brice says.

  “But if it hadn’t been for this one,” I continue as though he hadn’t spoken, “I never would have found you.”

  “And you think it intentionally brought you to me?” he spits.

  Vlaz growls again.

  “Why don’t you believe me?” My own temper rises. “We’re together and we’re alive. That should be proof enough for you.”

  We glare at each other for a minute, and then Brice drops the branch on the ground. Ekil moans.

  “Where are you going?” I hurry to catch up with Brice.

  “I didn’t realize when you talked about your friends you were talking about the Halves.”

  The sting of his words brings me to a halt.

  “I could have just stayed in the Subterrane if all I wanted was to befriend some Halves.” My voice wavers, betraying my emotion.

  “I know.” Brice softens. “I’m sorry. But it could have killed you. You’re giving the Halve credit for things that are just coincidences.”

  Exhaustion weighs on me. I don’t want to argue anymore.

  “Just promise you won’t hurt this Halve. I’m not on their side, I just want to know you won’t kill the one thing that brought us together. We owe it for that.”

  I walk back over to Ekil, who wipes blood from the back of his head with his rough, scarred hands. When Vlaz follows me, Ekil cowers on the ground.

  I rip off a piece of my shirt, dip it into the stream, and go to Ekil.

  “Here,” I say as I hand him the cloth. “You don’t need to fear us.”

  Vlaz sniffs the Halve but doesn’t growl.

  “We need to free the prisoners,” I tell Ekil as he mops the back of his head with the cloth. “Can you help us get back without anyone seeing us?”

  “Hemera…you’re grunting,” Brice says. He’s looking at me like I sprouted a second head.

  “I’m…what?” I turn away from Ekil to stare at Brice. I can’t tell if the look on his face is wonder or fear.

  “You’re grunting,” he says again.

  “I show you.” Ekil’s reply keeps me from having to think about the fact that I’m somehow speaking a different language without even realizing it.

  “Let’s go,” I say to Brice carefully, as though to make sure I don’t slip into the hideous, guttural language of the Halves. “Ekil is going to show us the way.”

  The Halve’s strides are much longer than ours, and we need to jog to keep pace. Brice keeps a considerable distance between himself and Ekil. He doesn’t say a word. Vlaz flies beside me and gives my cheek encouraging licks.

  The air is sweltering as the sun rises toward high day. Sweat streams down Brice’s face as he labors under his heavy cloak.

  “Everything in this place is unnatural,” Brice grumbles, skirting one of the yellow flowers and swiping at the sweat on his brow.

  I bite my lip, unable to shake the feeling that he’s talking about me, too.

  Ekil stops when we reach a grove of the white-leafed specere trees. “Follow the river until you reach the western door. No guards there.”

  Ekil starts to walk away.
/>   “Wait!” I say. “What about the drawing?”

  “He wants you,” Ekil replies without turning back.

  My stomach tightens. “Why? Why are you helping us?”

  Ekil is already too far away to hear.

  When I turn back, Brice is giving me that look again. “They’re not like us, you know.”

  For some reason, I think about the last time I ever spoke with my father. He warned me Brice might feel differently if he knew the whole truth about me. He said he sent Brice away to protect me.

  Could he have been right?

  I feel guilty and disgusted with myself the instant the thought crosses my mind.

  “Come on.” I yank up the hood of my silk cloak and wince as the material tears. “We

  need to reach the buildings before high day.”

  True to Ekil’s word, the western side of the building is empty and blocked from view of the main courtyard. We approach slowly. When Vlaz doesn’t growl or bare his teeth, I pull the heavy stone door open.

  We step over the piles of discarded stone and timber to the stacks of weapons. The stone clubs are too heavy for any human to wield, but the long iron blades are easy enough to carry.

  Brice stands still, staring at the piles of spears and clubs. “There’s something I have to tell you.” His face is pained, but he doesn’t look at me.

  I stumble on some unseen debris on the ground, and one of the blades slips from my arm.

  Not now, Hemera!

  It’s too late. The blade falls into a precarious pile of other weapons. For one, terrifying second, the pile teeters. And then the metal blades crash to the ground. The sound is loud enough to wake the dead.

  It’s followed by the Halves’ guttural cries.

  CHAPTER 40

  Come on!”

  I bend down to gather as many of the weapons as I can hold and race toward the ladder on the other side of the building. Balancing the weapons in one arm, I climb.

  When we reach the top, I look down. A group of Halves are staring at the mess on the ground, gesturing and grunting in confusion. None of them look up at us.

  “Fools,” Brice mutters, and then he looks at me, and his lip quirks. “I’m glad to know not everything about you has changed.” He gives my feet a meaningful glance.